tingbjerg social housing, copenhagen, c.1950-1972. architect: steen eiler rasmussen.

many influences come together in steen eiler rasmussen's postwar essay in urbanism, tingbjerg: his liking of urban spaces, repetition, and anonymous architecture bespeak his origin in nordic neoclassicism; there is the klint school's reactionary insistence on local craft, masonry in this case; also rasmussen's love of all things English shows itself in street scenes resembling at times a garden city and at times a mining town...finally, there is more than a hint of Italian rationalism.

but all that is invisible to most Danes, not because they don't appreciate architecture, but rather because of the almost complete failure of tingbjerg as an urban experiment.

its 2000-3000 counsil flats have been used as a social dump by the copenhagen municipality for decades; together with the physical isolation of the neighbourhood this has created an endemic condition of unemployment, substance abuse, and crime. flats are abandoned, shops are boarded up.

steen eiler rasmussen knew full well that his major work was a failure and made no effort to hide the fact that a different approach had to be found for public housing. his legacy as a building architect was permanently tainted and his reputation today rests solely on his writings.

these days see the early stages of a huge reinvestment in the area. the basic architectural fabric is of a quality that should make change possible even if some of us remain sceptical about what landscape architects can do about social problems...

still, as the early modernists well knew, social problems are best adressed with education, jobs, and decent housing. architecture does play a part.